


but we loved with a love that was more than love

by sonicenvy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Marriage Proposal, Telepathic Bond, That's Love Bitch, im back on my bullshit writing new d/r fic because i can, rambling plot free prose because adhd gremlin brain said no mc plot fics today, waffy to an insane degree, yearning so much soft yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25844161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicenvy/pseuds/sonicenvy
Summary: The evolution of the Doctor and Rose's relationship in tiny snippets. They have a deep and intense friendship that makes for a deep and intense romance. This was really an excuse for me to write little snippets of sweet WAFF and yearning, because the world is shitty and i need that right now. Rated Y for yearning.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 16
Kudos: 57





	but we loved with a love that was more than love

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @valentinaonthemoon for sending me encouraging thoughts about actually writing stuff when i ramble posted on tumblr about wanting to write the doctor and rose again. The doctor and rose are happily married best friends forever, you can't change my mind. 
> 
> All hail auntie beeb -- i (1) whole brokeass librarian own nothing and am simply playing around in their sandbox in my free time. 
> 
> Non-beta'd because i am on an upper and am feeling _really_ confident right now.

People always assumed they were together — even Jabe on platform one had. At first, they had both denied it. After a while, they stopped. Since Adam’s departure, Rose had only explicitly told anyone that she was single once — when she’d flirted with Jack in the middle of the London Blitz. They weren’t shagging, but they weren’t … not together. It felt wrong to claim to someone that she was single.

They never said anything but Rose had long ago stopped feeling single.

* * *

They’d slept in the same bed since their adventure in Van Staten’s bunker. They’d found that they both slept better when they were together. They shared the same room and the same en-suite bathroom. They shared a closet, and woke up in the mornings to one another. The bedroom that they shared was their sanctuary from the rest of the universe. When they each inevitably had nightmares, they comforted one another in the darkness of their room, holding on and promising to never, never, ever let got. _I’ve got you! I’ve got you!_ whispered between them a hundred times at least.

* * *

They had been married on at least a hundred worlds in all the time that they’d known each other. Rose had each and every token of marriage that she’d gotten tucked away safely in their room. She always wore the pinkie ring he’d given her on Tifia V as a part of the wedding ceremony they’d accidentally stumbled into. He had kept the delicate tattoo of a flower she’d drawn on his wrist as a part of the wedding they’d accidentally ended up participating in on Caelus — the inked image remained even through his regeneration.

* * *

They spent most of their time together and they shared most of their meals. They’d eaten off of each other’s plates countless times.

“ _Try this Rose! You’ll love it!_ ” he often said before feeding her a bite of some new exotic food.

They cooked together at home, moving in an easy synch. They made weekly trips to their five favorite grocers across the universe. They had favorite restaurants they revisited often: the chippy down the street from Rose’s mum’s, the chocolate place on Tallian III, the chippy in Northern Ireland in the 23rd century. Some time ago or other, Rose had stopped referring to Powell Estate as her home. Home was the TARDIS, the Doctor’s hand in hers, and the humming of time in their ears, the stars burning in their wake.

* * *

After a while, he stopped pretending to complain about going to visit her mum. He dutifully cooked meals when they came for a visit or picked up chips from Rose’s favorite chip shop. They usually brought her mum a supply of tea from Tastivie IX, a collection of blends she’d come to love. Every time they visited her mum they brought her new pictures of them on their travels, which she tacked up to her refrigerator. He’d souped up Jackie’s TV, laundry machine, toaster, microwave and dishwasher. Jackie had long since stopped pretending to dislike him too.

When they came to visit, they parked the TARDIS in Rose’s old room and Jackie hugged them both tightly; they could each feel her relief at seeing them again, the washing away of the worry that she carried about them getting over their heads in trouble.

* * *

Rose’s scrapbook of pictures from their adventures was half full of pictures of the two of them laughing together, snuggling, leaning on one another with a thousand different worlds behind them. They made a regular Rose-time monthly trip to the same camera shop in 1970s London to buy film packs for Rose’s camera.

The first time Rose had shared her scrapbook with the Doctor he’d felt as though his heart would burst; the trust she had in him never ceased to amaze him. In the beginning it was just filled with Rose’s drawings of their adventures, doodles of his face and each world he took her to.

He’d bought her the camera for her twentieth birthday, one just like she’d had when she was a child and together they took pictures to fill her scrapbook. Rose still drew and painted alongside them — at night before she went to sleep they would sit in companionable silence in the workshop/studio room. The Doctor tinkered and built and Rose painted and drew. Sometimes, he would put on the radio and they would dance together in the middle of the studio, laughing wildly in each other’s arms.

* * *

They held hands wherever they went, one of the first reassuring and intimate gestures they’d share in their relationship. Every brush of their fingertips a message of reassurance: _I’m here! I’m here and I’m not leaving you._

* * *

The telepathic link they’d formed when Rose had stepped aboard the TARDIS as an official frequent flier strengthened every day. It blossomed into something more powerful than the basic link that friends shared. They were always aware of one another, always able to read one another’s moods. When they were on the same planet, in the same time they could communicate telepathically without having to touch one another. Rose and the Doctor reached across their link often, seeking reassurance, comfort and affection — the action was instinctive and unconscious for both of them. The Doctor’s burned mind was healing and Rose’s restless one was settling, finding itself.

* * *

Rose had heard the words, _“This is my partner, Rose.”_ From the Doctor’s mouth a thousand times on a thousand planets in the three years they’d known each other. Sometimes he introduced her as his wife. Sometimes as his mate. Sometimes as his girlfriend. As always, she followed his lead.

* * *

_“This is my partner the Doctor,”_ Rose had said a thousand times on a thousand worlds, holding his hand, eyes sparkling with all of the love she held for him in her heart that she was never brave enough to articulate. As always, he followed her lead.

* * *

_“You’re alive! Oh Rose, love you’re alive,”_ The Doctor said though sobs, clutching her body to him. She’d sent him all of the love and reassurance she could across the link they shared; it was instinctive. In his relief and joy he strengthened their bond — the instinctive response to the near miss they’d had.

_“Can’t get rid of me that easily,”_ Rose said, laughing through labored breath. She reached back, reciprocating his mental touch.

* * *

The link, the bond between them was always there in her mind, humming away. Whenever they got into an argument, it drew them back together, urging them to reconnect, to listen to each other. On occasion it made them both incredibly clingy, but neither of them minded as much as they thought they would.

* * *

“You never told me what he’s like,” Shareen said in a teasing tone.

“We’re not like that,” Rose said, “The Doctor and I aren’t like that.”

“Come off it Rose. I’m not your mum.”

“No really!” Rose said, “The Doctor and I are the best of friends.”

Shareen looked like she didn’t believe Rose at all.

But Rose and the Doctor weren’t having sex — they’d only ever kissed once. Twice if you counted the time that Rose had been possessed by Casandra on New Earth. In the beginning, Rose had wanted so much sometimes that it was all she could think about when they were close, the warmth of his breath skating across her skin when he whispered in her ear.

Since Satellite one, her inferno of wanting, burned as a low ember. Sometimes, he would look at her the right way — a reflection of her own slowly burning desires, and she felt his mental touch everywhere and she wanted with a strength she couldn’t quite find the words for. But Rose was happy — happier than she had ever been in a relationship and it didn’t matter as much whether or not they were shagging.

As long as they were together everything was right in the universe.

* * *

“Are you ever going to settle down sweetheart?” Her mum asked.

Rose couldn’t imagine herself ever wanting to. She and the Doctor shared the same itchy feet and wanderlust — it was one of the many reasons they got on so well from the very beginning. They were both seeking, yearning.

“I just don’t want you to miss out on a nice normal relationship.”

“I’m not missing out on anything,” Rose said, “Promise.”

She wasn’t. Even if they never got together in all of the ways that she wanted them to, Rose couldn’t imagine herself leaving him. She couldn’t imagine herself in a relationship with some other, unknown man or woman. The intensity of her relationship with the Doctor as it was, had ruined her for any future relationships; she supposed it was a good thing that she wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

* * *

_“How long are you going to stay with me?”_ he’d asked her, voice soft and low, the closest he’d come to a proposal.

_“Forever!_ ” she’d said, _“You?”_

He’d smiled at her, that soft smile that she rarely ever saw from him — the one he shot her when he though she wasn’t looking. His smiled tasted of joy and wonder. _“Oh, forever,”_ he’d said, squeezing her hand.

She’d huddled closer to him because had been a brisk day. He’d pulled her closer still and she caught the faint sound of his voice whispering into the crown of her head in his native tongue, his voice barely there. She understood some of the words — the TARDIS had been teaching her his native tongue, but she didn’t need to understand all of them to get the taste of them.

* * *

She hadn’t imagined him proposing to her, but had she imagined it, she might have pictured it happening in some naturally beautiful alien locale. But, like most of the things in her life, it dropped on her without warning.

There wasn’t anything particularly special about the moment, no disaster recently averted, no candle lit romantic dinner on hand. The moment was quiet and private; they were just sitting in their pajamas on the couch in the TARDIS library, Rose half in the Doctor’s lap.

“Marry me?” he asked her, his dark eyes warm and full of longing.

He asked her a hundred different times before on a hundred different worlds before they’d fallen into a hundred accidental marriages. Here and now his voice was almost inaudible, and there was a new intensity to it.

This time when he asked, it was just the Doctor and Rose asking and answering.

“Yes,” she said, half breathless, joy leaping in her stomach, some of it hers and some of it his, “A thousand times yes.”

He kissed her and she felt like she was flying.


End file.
